Know Your Strengths and Weaknesses

This may come as second nature to some, but I have often found myself working on something that I should be paying someone else to do. The fact is we're all good at some things, and not so good at others. Know what these things are and play to them.

If you're a programmer and can code logic in your sleep, you might serve yourself well to handle lots of datafeeds. We can all spit out mega sites with feeds, but someone with this kind of talent will find it much easier to manipulate and rearrange a feed and it's injection on a page in a way that makes it unique. The rest of us can do what we can, or hire someone else who likely won't do as well as someone working for their own best interest.

If you love to write, you are lucky in this biz - just churn it out. Others may need to pay qualified writers rather than labor over every keystroke. Remember when buying content, you get what you pay for.

Affiliates that are good at renegotiating their contracts should spend time doing so with each merchant, once they drive enough traffic.

This can be applied to just about any aspect of this business. If you're good at it, do it. If you ain't, pay somebody else to.

Different Affiliates May Find Different Results
A few times, I have had success with projects, and told friends about them. When they tried to duplicate what I did, their attempt flopped. They didn't necessarily do anything wrong, something just didn't click like it did for me. I have also had this happen when trying others' suggestions. This isn't really common, but it isn't surprising either. We just all do different things in different ways.

Let The Dead Rest - And Learn From Them
Sites, projects and ideas that don't pan out need to be written off. By nature, many of us, myself included, will go to ends we would never have planned for, just to save something that is dying. Cut your losses, identify what the problems were if possible, and move on. Always keep moving in this business.

You may find there are certain types of sites you do well with, or certain types you don't. Be efficient with your time, none of us can do well with all things.

Help a Brother Out
If you excel at something you can share, help your friends. They will be able to return the favor at some time. For example, I like tweaking and testing ad placement, I do it almost obsessively. Every now and then one of my buds will call on me to eye what they're working on. Taking 5 minutes to help someone turn a few hundred extra bucks a month goes a long way in the buddy system. Have friends you can trust and work together whenever you can.